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ORGANIZING EXPERTISE:
ENGINEERING AND PUBLIC WORKS UNDER COLBERT, 1662-83
Michael S. Mahoney
Princeton University
©1980, 1996 Michael S. Mahoney - Draft Version - Not for Distribution Without Permission
What follows began as a search for a community that prefigured a profession. The idea that such a community might exist stemmed from the observation, made in passing during another investigation, that various documents of Colbert's administration repeatedly referred to "engineers" engaged in public works. Enough different people bore the title to suggest that it was being used to denote a distinct occupation and a delimited form of know-how. Enough large-scale projects were underway to suggest that engineers were in demand and that in meeting that demand they might display patterns of group behavior indicative of a growing sense of common purpose. The search was to be aimed at eliciting those patterns and at exploring the common traits that underlay the engineers' sense of group identity.
An unpublished examination of the Italian engineering community during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries formed the model. Working in 1972 from published sources, H.T. Daughtrey, a graduate student in the Program in History and Philosophy of Science(1), had found a sizable community of people who between the 1460s and the 1520s moved from town to town to work on the large public-works projects characteristic of the despotic era. The same names appeared in the records of various opere, while individuals displayed what might be called a common résumé of employment. So marked was the common pattern that one could see clearly the changes wrought on it when the French invasion brought a halt to the building boom. Only a few engineers found employment in Rome, the one city still able to mount major projects. Large numbers of their colleagues emigrated throughout Europe to undertake, supervise, or consult on works in Hungary, Bohemia, Muscovy, Poland, Scandinavia, the Low Countries, and even France. A small group stayed home in Italy but adapted its practice to a new set of canons. This group, which one might call the "academic engineers", turned to the recovery of ancient treatises on machines and structures and to the composition of their own studies of the subjects. Galileo is an outgrowth of that new pattern of engineering, which gradually changed a practical tradition into a learned discipline.
On closer examination, it turned out that Colbert's administrative documents would not lend themselves to establishing such large-scale patterns.(2) Despite his reputation for central organization, his portfolios gave him authority over only a portion of the activities that concerned engineers at the time, and even that authority was only partial. Other sources show that many engineers never came into Colbert's orbit and that some who did moved in and out quite easily. But, perhaps because roads, bridges, canals, and harbors in France have not yet interested scholars as much as have cathedrals, palaces, bridges, and canals in Italy, there are not enough other sources to supplement Colbert's records and to make an exploration of Daughtrey's sort possible. For that, one must turn to the archives, and they lie well beyond the scope of the present essay.
A study that has appeared within the past year shows what the archives might reveal. In Les ingénieurs du "Roy" de Louis XIV a Louis XVI (Montpellier, 1979) Anne Blanchard has examined the shifts in social patterns among the total of 1490 military engineers of the Corps des Fortifications during the roughly one hundred years between its formation in 1691 and the end of the Ancien Regime. She sets out as her main lines of inquiry: (l) the emergence of a conscience de corps during the years both preceding and following its organization, (2) the special status of engineers within the army, (3) the social origins and patterns of recruitment of engineers in the Corps, (4) the development of personal and familial alliances and lines of influence, and (5) the role of engineers in the science of the eighteenth century.
In the book's first two chapters, which pertain to the period of concern to us here, Blanchard reviews the origins of military engineering in Europe from the early fifteenth century and then begins her account in earnest with the establishment in 1691 of a single Departement des Fortifications uniting the separate jurisdictions of the minister of war (Le Tellier, then Louvois) and of the minister of the navy (Colbert, then Seignelay) and placing the two groups of engineers under the effective guidance of Vauban. 112 men came from the navy, 164 from the army, to form a total original corps of 276 engineers. Extensive research in the Archives de la Guerre, the Archives du Génie, and various provincial archives yielded information about the birthplace of 218, about the social origins of 201, and about the occupations of the fathers of 148 of those 201. The two groups displayed some marked differences. For example, army engineers were recruited from all over France, although they tended to come mostly from the poorer regions (Nivernais, southern Champagne) and hardly at all from the provinces under navy administration. Rural origins predominated, as did noble lines. By contrast, the naval engineers came largely from the provinces administered by the Colberts, from the cities in those provinces, and from the bourgeois families in those cities. Both groups consisted largely of first-generation engineers; only a few men were following in their fathers' footsteps, more of them in the navy than in the army.
As interesting and revealing as Blanchard's findings here and in succeeding chapters are for the social history of one particular group of engineers, they do not say much about engineering and its formation into a profession. They cannot, for they have been collected and analyzed on the premiss that engineering constituted a profession from the outset and that not its formation, but rather its adaptation to competing structures of organization in the military is what is problematical.(3) Although Blanchard includes some remarks about the practice of military engineering, for her purposes it does not matter what the engineers did and how what they did distinguished them from other people doing similar things,(4) but rather who they were and whence they came and how their origin and status compare with those of officers of other branches of the military. For that reason, although her study shows what use might be made of the archives to answer the questions raised above, it does not itself make that use of them.
That is not only because Blanchard's investigation has a different focus, but also because its focus shades another group of engineers who did the king's work and misses completely engineers in the private sector on whom the government was forced to rely when its own resources proved insufficient. For Colbert wore three hats under Louis XIV: Contrôleur Général des Finances, Secrétaire d'Etat Pour la Marine, and Surintendant des Bâtiments. The navy portfolio gave him supervision over construction of harbors, shore installations, ships, and coastal waterways. As overseer of the king's buildings, Colbert supervised such projects as the construction of the Louvre, Versailles, and the waterworks at Marly. Somewhere in between these two portfolios, and somehow as an extension of the third, i.e. finance, fell responsibility for improving and enlarging the network of commerce and communication in the realm, i.e. its system of roads, rivers, canals, and bridges.
To be sure, commerce and defense often went hand in hand. A road or bridge strengthened to bear heavy transport also facilitated the movement of heavy artillery, and canal barges drew no less water than light naval vessels. On those grounds one could quite properly employ royal military and naval engineers on civil projects. But much of Colbert's concern with transportation explicitly stemmed from commercial goals and hence served civilian purposes which, however laudable, could not compete with military needs when it was a matter of the allocation of scarce resources.
For these projects Colbert employed a sizable number of identifiable people whom he called ingénieurs, but not many of whom seem to have been considered ingénieurs du roi and hence to have been consolidated into Vauban's single corps in 1691. These engineers are people whom Blanchard has not investigated,(5) but about whom one would like to know some of the things she has found out about the military engineers, in particular the sources and means of recruitment and the existence or development of some sort of conscience de corps as "civil" engineers.(6) For it seems clear that the people in question constitute the roots of the later service of ponts et chaussées, as well as of the private engineering enterprises that operated alongside the government forces.(7)
The very existence of these "civil" engineers brings out clearly a question that Blanchard's focus on military engineering --and in particular her emphasis on Louvois and Vauban rather than on Colbert and Clerville-- enabled her to avoid, to wit, the nature and source of the expertise required to carry out Colbert's civil projects. Fortification, defilade, sapping, and emplacement of artillery were to an appreciable extent matters of military experience; at least, they were until eighteenth-century engineers developed a body of pertinent theory. Over and above such military experience Vauban sought little more than the longstanding know-how of architects and master masons to transform his drawings into fortresses.
By contrast, canals set forth ever new challenges of laying constant gradients over changing terrain (indeed of determining whether a desired gradient is possible between two widely separated points), of channeling and securing channels through different soil conditions (in particular, where sand is present), of maintaining the supply of water, and of designing and constructing locks. Making bridges wide enough and sturdy enough for heavy traffic while at the same time reducing the number of piers to permit unrestricted flow of river traffic posed structural problems for which no body of theory --indeed, very little practical experience-- yet existed. Yet, clearly such projects were successfully carried out and hence equally clearly some people at the time knew how to do these things or at least had enough know-how to teach themselves on the job. Who were these people? How did they learn what they knew? What did they know of one another? How did Colbert and his subordinates find them? Did the minister make an effort to organize them? If so, how? If not, did they move toward organizing themselves in any way? Did they, for example, begin to develop any sense of community? In short, what patterns, if any, can one find of social cohesion among people whose essential common characteristic is a newly valued body of knowledge, or rather of know-how, and how did those patterns come to be formed?
For the engineers that did come into Colbert's orbit, then, the question of what they knew and how they knew it becomes at least as important as who they were and where they came from, and correlations between the two sets of questions would offer insights of considerable depth. Unfortunately, the published sources do not contain sufficient information for satisfactory answers to either set of questions, much less for the desired correlations. Almost by way of compensation, however, they do yield some revealing glimpses into the personal and social consciousness of people whose distinction derives from special know-how. That is, they reveal something about the status of expertise in engineering in the late seventeenth century. What they show touches in turn on the nature of the conscience de corps that underlies organized expertise in general and professionalized expertise in particular.
Before looking at specific examples, it might help to consider the question in the abstract, though keeping in mind the various pitfalls into which the Davis Seminar has fallen over the past year and a half. Whatever the distinctive features of a profession, it is but one form of organized, socially recognized expertise. A guild is another, a bureaucracy another, a priesthood yet another. Not all forms of special knowledge or skill fit this general criterion. A secret brotherhood or a band of criminals may be organized, but it lacks social recognition; prophets may enjoy immense prestige, but they seldom join with other prophets to form an organization.
Implicit in the formation of any group of expert practitioners, then, is the question of expertise itself. That question readily breaks down into a series of historical inquiries. When and how did a certain body of skills or knowledge come to be recognized as expertise possessed by only a few people? By what criteria were the true possessors of expertise distinguished from mere claimants, and who made the distinction? When and how did a given society begin to think it useful or important to make the distinction officially? Some examples may elucidate these questions.
In any society there are many skills that are commonly possessed even if not commonly exercised. In a farming community, for example, most people know how to plow, sow, tend, and reap; how to repair tools or even make them; how to raise a barn; how to tend animals and cure them; how to deliver babies; and so on. None of these skills is considered expertise. Anyone claiming special possession would surely meet with the derisive rebuttal, "Everyone knows how to do that!" Yet, at various times in history, certain skills or forms of knowledge have reached a stage of difficulty or complexity that has required special training and practice, not to say exclusive attention, with the result that only a few people in fact possess them. Perhaps anyone can dig irrigation ditches, but only a few people have the know-how to build a canal between two rivers.(8) A footbridge is not the same as a railroad trestle. Thus, around the turn of the fifteenth century, the engineer began to emerge as a special practitioner distinct from the mass of masons, carpenters, and surveyors that made up the building trades, just as earlier each of these guild members achieved the status of knowing something that not everyone knew. At a certain point, people's general know-how proves inadequate to the task, and they call in special skill.
At that point, however, they face the question of determining whether someone in truth possesses the expertise he professes to have. Opposite the expert stands the charlatan who, whatever his claims, does not really know that much more than the non-expert. By what criteria shall one decide? Shall one look to a voluntary organization of all those who, possessing the know-how, know how to recognize others who have it? Shall one ask to see a certificate of training from a school of some sort which, operated by experts, has demonstrated its ability to train other experts? Shall one expect a license from the government, which in its wisdom knows how to detect the possession of expertise? With the recognition of the existence of expertise comes the problem of recognizing the expert.
In different places at different times, and for different kinds of expertise, the problem of recognition has had varying levels of social value and importance. In early modern Europe, the medical profession seems to have worried about charlatans much more than did the population at large. The physicians knew they had expertise and how to test for its possession by others, but their patients apparently did not place great weight on the profession's certification of practitioners. By contrast, society at large did worry about false priests and supported dire punishment for claimants found lacking by the recognized body of experts. Today, we demand extensive certification and licensing of our physicians but allow the widest possible latitude to those professing priesthood.
It was not as an afterthought that the designation "engineer" first came into circulation in the early fifteenth century. It denoted possession of a new form of expertise called forth by new problems in construction. Brunelleschi is the classic example. He earned the title by designing and executing the dome of the church of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, a task to which the traditional methods of the pertinent construction guilds were clearly inadequate. His achievement impressed people by its novelty and ingenuity, and so the term ingegnere applied to men like Brunelleschi continued at first to carry the connotations of its Latin root ingenium and hence to single a person out rather than to identify him with a group. Not until the construction boom of the later fifteenth century required similar and repeated ingenuity from a relatively large number of ingegneri did the title start to denote simply the possession of a certain know-how. Even then it was know-how largely claimed by reputation rather than by training or by attachment to an organized group, and one demonstrated one's possession of expertise by getting the job done.
That remained the case throughout the sixteenth century, and at the beginning of the seventeenth in France one still finds a small number of individuals of considerable reputation at work on singular projects, while the bulk of public works was left in the hands of non-experts, i.e. of people whose know-how attracted no distinctive recognition, perhaps because it was not in fact particularly sophisticated know-how. Just as the government relied on corvée labor to build roads and bridges, so it largely relied on the general knowledge of local administrators of how to build them.(9) Colbert seems to have been the first to change that pattern. His program of public works involved projects of unprecedented scale and complexity, if only by letting the commercial ends make demands on the technical means rather than conversely. To plan, execute, and supervise these projects Colbert needed expertise that neither he nor his administrative officials possessed. Perhaps because of the expectations derived from longstanding practice, he did not always recognize that need. Free with his own advice, he sometimes expected intendants to act as engineers. At other times, however, he knew he lacked the know-how, but then he was not always sure how to get hold of someone who had it, nor of whether the person he chose did in fact have it. Moreover, even when he was sure, he faced the problem of convincing others who, possessing it themselves, recognized no authority other than their own. Colbert faced the problem of organizing expertise that up until that time had made no move toward organizing itself. Inherent in the problem of organization was the question of recognition. A closer look at some examples will clarify the situation.(10)
In the years immediately after assuming his ministerial responsibilities Colbert sent out three engineers on tours of inspection of ongoing and projected public works. Clerville, the Commissaire Général des Fortifications returning to Marseilles to check on construction of a citadel there, received orders to look into a few matters along the way. The king wanted, first of all, to join the Loire and the Seine by a canal at Pithiviers and by the Etampes River. Then he wanted to connect the Loire with the Saône which, flowing into the Rhone, led ultimately to the Mediterranean. Clerville was to visit the sites; wherever he went he was to find out what rivers could be made navigable and what it would take to make them so. Passing through Lyon, he should inspect the repairs being made on the Rhone bridge and offer any necessary advice. Marseilles and the citadel would not end his journey. Once his work there was completed, he was to proceed to Languedoc and examine the plans for a canal from Beaucaire to Aigues-Mortes and for a harbor at its mouth. While he was at it, he could check "all the harbors, channels, and coasts of that province and draw up a precise memoir of everything that can be done to facilitate navigation and commerce by sea, which has been wholly ruined by the lack of harbors." Then Clerville was to take a careful look at a plan to join the Atlantic and the Mediterranean by a canal between the Aude and Tarn Rivers; the feasibility of this venture demanded special attention for its potential benefits. Thereafter, the engineer should check on the navigability of the Bidassoa River near Hendaye and then proceed north along the Atlantic coast from St.-Jean-de-Luz to Bordeaux to scout for a suitable place to construct a harbor. Chateau-Trompette, under construction, was his next destination, followed by a trip along the Gironde to inspect the tower at Cordouan and to consider bypassing it by a canal from Royan to the Seudre River. Finally, he was to visit the emplacements at Brouages, La Rochelle, Ile de Ré, and Ile d'Oleron to see to their maintenance, and then to inspect two locations proposed by Colbert de Terron for harbors capable of holding the entire French fleet along with its arsenals. The minister expected a full report on Clerville's return.(11)
Two years later, in April 1665, the engineer Levau carried out a more modest mission. Starting at Sainte-Maxence on the Oise and moving then to Creil, he inspected all bridges and roads at the two towns before stopping back at Paris to report. Thereafter he headed out along the Loire to check progress on the construction or repair of bridges at Orleans, Beaugency, Jargeau, Gien, Montargis, and Cosne; from La Charité to Nevers, he inspected all the works underway. Moving over to the Yonne, he started back toward Paris by way of Auxerre, Seignelay, Joigny, Sens, and Montereau, looking at bridges and levées all the way.(12)
At the same time, the engineer Chamois went up the Marne, worked his way back and forth between the Aube and the Seine through what are now the departments of Aube and Seine-et-Marne.(13) After surveying the possibility of making the Voulzie River navigable from Provins to the Seine near Bray, he then covered the entire Aube from Nogent-sur-Seine to Bar-sur-Aube, determining precisely what was required to make the river navigable from the proposed canal downriver to its junction with the Oise. Then he joined a certain Morel and with him inspected all the rivers of Champagne, Trois-Evêchés, and Lorraine, with an eye toward making them navigable. From this journey he proceeded to Polisy between Troyes and Nogent to see that work got underway to clear the Seine over the section Polisy-Nogent. When all that had been accomplished, Chamois retraced his entire route to satisfy himself that work was progressing before he returned to report to Colbert; he had until the end of summer if necessary to complete the double tour.
The above tours de France date from the beginning of Colbert's ministry and only hint at the plans he had for developing the roads, rivers, harbors, bridges, and flood-control works of the country.(14) By the mid-1670s scarcely a river remained untouched by dredges and earthworks, several major canals were underway, and the town of Grenoble, among others, was safe from the ravages of its flood-prone river. France was a-building, with Colbert as chief contractor, drawing out every penny of taxes and dues and every man-hour of corvée owed the Crown to help pay for his projects. Where current income proved insufficient, he was ready to sell off capital, paying for projects with fiefs, customs, monopolies, and offices.
Yet, at the outset at least, Colbert apparently gave little thought to another condition of carrying out his grand plans, namely, to engineers with the knowledge and experience to do the job. Where was he to find people who knew how to dredge rivers without collapsing the banks, to prevent the flow of sand into channels, to build dikes and levees that could withstand the undercutting of deflected currents, to cut feeder canals over rough terrain, to build locks, dams, jetties, and piers? Who could design new and stronger bridges and roads to carry increased loads of goods flowing over the country?
An example or two will help to suggest the limits of his resources in these areas. On 21 April 1666 the intendant Bouchu wrote to Colbert to report a halt in progress on the proposed canal linking the Loire and the Saône:
Vous trouverez ci-joint un procès-verbal que j'ai dressé en suite des publications qui ont été faites pendant six dimanches consécutifs dans les villes de Dijon, Châlon et Lyon, des ouvrages à faire pour la transnavigation de Saône en Loire, et la communication des mers, par lequel vous connaîtrez qu'il ne s'est présenté aucun entrepreneur pour lesdits ouvrages, ni par-devant les lieutenants généraux de Lyon et Châlon, auxquels j'avais adressé nos ordonnances, ni par-devant moi au jour que j'avais marqué pour l'adjudication de ces ouvrages, et assurément, Monsieur, il n'y a personne dans ces provinces ni assez intelligent(15) ni assez riche pour de telles entreprises, et pour ce grand dessein, il ne faut pas s'attendre d'en trouver qu'à Paris.(16)
As will become clear presently, money could well have constituted the main barrier between Colbert and the entrepreneurs he sought. What the minister liked even more than grand designs was grand designs that cost the royal treasury nothing. He was looking for expertise backed by venture capital of no mean amount.
But Bouchu had pointed first to the shortage of expertise, and his complaint was echoed in a report written elsewhere in France on the very next day. Another intendant, Pellot, was having difficulties carrying out work on the Lot River:
L'on fait tout ce qui se peut au monde pour avancer ce travail de la rivière du Lot, et afin qu'il se fasse avec beaucoup de ménage; mais cet ouvrage est extraordinairement difficile et pénible. Il faut travailler en même temps en vingts endroits différents, éloignés d'une lieue ou deux les uns des autres. Il y a force rochers à couper, des paissières ou digues à transporter. C'est une riviére fâcheuse, et où il arrive souvent des creues; les ingénieurs et architectes, quoique les plus habiles, se sont souvent mécomptés.(17)
It had taken some ingenuity to get the advice of those "most able", yet fallible engineers. A year earlier Pellot had boasted of having seized on an unusual opportunity. A four-man team of engineers had come to examine a specific difficulty in the design of three locks. Pellot grabbed them:
... comme l'on aurait de la peine d'...assembler autant [de gens experts] dans le reste du royaume, puisque nous les avons, je ferai en sorte qu'ils ne se séparent point qu'ils n'aient résolu ce qu'il faut faire dans cette rivière du Lot jusqu'à Cahors.(18)
In the mid-1660s one evidently took what expertise one could find, when and where one could find it.
Yet, know-how existed to be found. The Canal de Languedoc shows that.(19) The idea of a canal linking the Garonne near Toulouse to the Aude near Carcassonne --and via those rivers respectively the Atlantic to the Mediterranean--had floated about for centuries, but not until the early 1660s did someone suggest a means of doing so that would not entail large-scale reshaping of the region's topography. A local tax-farmer, Pierre-Paul Riquet, Seigneur de Bonrepos, wrote to Colbert in 1662 to say that he had a plan that would reduce the construction of a canal to questions of financing alone --and for that too he had some proposals to offer. Colbert responded first by detailing Clerville to look into the matter (cf. his instructions above) and then by setting up with the Etats de Languedoc a joint commission to scrutinize the proposal and to draw up precise specifications and estimates. (The personnel of that commission is of interest in itself; we shall return to it in a moment.)
The essence of Riquet's plan lay in his claim to be able to construct dikes, watercourses, and aqueducts that would feed the waters of the Alzan, Vernassone, and Lampellon rivers into the Lampy, the Lampy into the Rieutort, and the Rieutort into the Sor, and then bring the combined flow to Les Pierres de Naurouse near Castelnaudary, where a natural watershed would divide it to feed the two parts of a canal between the Garonne and the Aude. The canal via Naurouse would follow the flattest line possible and hence require the fewest locks between the two terminals. It was a bold plan, and on-site inspection failed to allay the commission's doubts that it could be carried out. Before any canal could be undertaken, Colbert's experts wanted to see a preliminary two-foot trench along the entire route of the feeder system, including such aqueducts as would be necessary to ensure a year-round supply of water for the main canal.
As far as the canal itself was concerned, the commission knew what sorts of locks, embankments, and other works would be required, but at least one member doubted that the requisite locks were feasible. In addition, inspection and soundings made it clear that the Aude could not be made navigable without extraordinary measures. Hence, the commission proposed that the canal, if it were built at all, run past Carcassonne through Trèbes and alongside the Aude to Narbonne. To make a virtue of necessity, the experts suggested then turning the canal toward the Etang de Thau, linking it to a new harbor at Cette (now Sète), and extending it through the marshes of Aigues-Mortes to connect with the Rhone. Then traffic could move from Bordeaux to Marseilles without having to venture into the Mediterranean at all. For the canal from Toulouse to Narbonne, including the feeder system, the committee estimated a cost of some eight million livres. They offered no estimates on the final section, because they expected that Colbert would treat it as a matter of naval installations.(20)
Colbert kept a tight hand on the king's purse under any circumstances, but the combined hesitation and daring of the commission's report made him even more wary than usual. Despite his policy of enhancing the nation's commercial facilities, he was not about to risk investment in a project in which his advisers did not have full confidence. Fortunately for him, Riquet did have the needed confidence. He declared himself willing to undertake the experimental trench at his own cost. If his plan failed, he stood to lose some 200,000 livres. If he succeeded, he expected to be able to proceed with the canal and to gain commensurately with the risk he had taken; at first, however, he left his sense of "commensurately" undefined.
Who was Riquet that he should have such confidence in his ability to carry out a major engineering project with several novel and therefore dubious components? "Tous ses contemporains," wrote his descendents in their Histoire du Canal de Languedoc, "s'accordent à dire qu'il avait un génie rare, et que la nature seule l'avait fait géomètre." That is to say, he lacked any formal credentials. He introduced himself to Colbert as an homme de gabelle dabbling in surveying (nivelage) and "n'entendant ni grec ni latin, et à peine sachant pas parler français, il n'est pas possible que je m'explique sans bégayer."(21) Hence, he had had little schooling and, if he had ever built anything prior to the Languedoc Canal, neither he nor anyone else at the time mentioned it. Perhaps he had tried some experiments on his own estates; if so, they are not recorded. Apparently, Colbert had no more to go on than do we today in judging Riquet's expertise prior to the fact.
In fact, Riquet not only completed the experimental trench within four months of having received the letters-patent to undertake it (in April 1665), but he did so at less than half the estimated cost. While at St.-Germain to confer with Colbert he had conceived a route for the trench that eliminated the need for any reversals of flow, aqueducts, or tunnels; by a combination of ditches and valleys, he could use the natural fall of the terrain to bring the water to Les Pierres de Naurouse. If nothing else, Riquet knew the lay of the land in the Montagne Noire; indeed, he carried it about with him in his head. So far, he seemed to know what he was doing.
His know-how extended well beyond ditches and dikes, although in more expected ways. Encouraged now by Colbert to explain the remarks about commensurate gain, Riquet set out a plan whereby he would build the canal on speculation. The details are too complicated to set out fully here, but in essence Riquet would purchase the entire route of the canal as a newly created fief with full seigneurial rights, including justice, castle, monopolies, and the sale of offices.(22) The owners of the properties seized to form the fief would be indemnified by the King. Riquet would then bid on the contract to build the canal, accepting as payment various taxes and tax-farms. Finally, as a means of guaranteeing the canal's maintenance when completed, the king would assign to the proprietor income from fixed tolls on the canal.
These are high stakes under any circumstances, but they loom especially large against the backdrop of Colbert's failure to attract any bidders at all for the Loire-Saône canal. Financial considerations aside, the Languedoc Canal scheme meant the permanent alienation of land, justice, offices, and customs along a waterway that could have strategic as well as commercial importance. That Colbert was willing to pay that price shows how desperately he wanted the canal. Riquet for his part engaged himself not only to pay a sum of millions of livres over the space of a few years but also to organize an undertaking involving political and financial administration in addition to technical direction of the canal itself. It is worth considering, therefore, first what sort of expert advice Colbert had in making his decision to approve the canal and in assuring himself thereafter concerning its satisfactory progress; and second what personnel Riquet had available to fill his organization and execute his plans. Since, as will become clear, Colbert's resources of expertise differed from Riquet's, it is further worth considering what measures, if any, Colbert and his successors took to enlist such private resources in the service of the government.
Presented with Riquet's initial proposal, Colbert turned first to his Commissaire General des Fortifications, Nicolas de Clerville (1610-1677).(23) Clerville had begun his career in the army and had risen through distinguished service to the rank of maréchal de camp by 1652. Only then had he turned to military engineering and served as counsellor to Mazarin in that area. When, on assuming personal rule, Louis XIV reduced the number of secretaries of state from four to two but maintained a division of military authority between them (Le Tellier had responsibility for the army and for fortifications in the northeast sector, Colbert for the navy and for installations in the south, southwest, and west), Clerville seemed the person best suited to link the two portfolios and maintain general technical oversight. Before long, however, Le Tellier and his son Louvois lost confidence in Clerville and turned for advice instead to Vauban, who thus replaced Clerville long before succeeding to his office.
Colbert retained Clerville's services, not only in matters of military engineering but also in the matters of civil engineering that fell under the minister's other jurisdictions. So it happened that an old soldier who had some special experience in building forts, digging trenches, and placing artillery spent his later years roaming the south of France inspecting roads, rivers, bridges, and canals and being asked his advice on matters of engineering for which his previous record would suggest he was unprepared. But then, it is not at all clear from his record what he did know, or how he knew it.
Colbert evidently trusted Clerville's judgment. For one thing, even if the marshal had never built a bridge or a canal, he surely had managed large construction projects and therefore knew how to draw up a reliable estimate of costs. When, for example, the joint commission filed its report on the possibility of Riquet's canal, it included an estimate of some eight million livres as the cost. That figure came from people whom Colbert himself had designated as experts. But then Clerville revised the estimate, pointing out that it projected a cross-section larger than necessary for the traffic the canal would be carrying --the Garonne itself set limits on the size of vessels entering the canal-- and that it included dikes, levees, and reservoirs that Riquet's new feeder route rendered superfluous. Clerville's revised estimate cut the projected cost in half, while at the same time it allowed Riquet greater leeway than before in making changes. Accepted without demur by Colbert, it became the basis of all future financial planning for the canal. Moreover, it marked a shift in the personnel from whom Colbert sought expert opinion. The commission ceased to play any role.
That commission, named jointly by Colbert and the Etats de Languedoc, had consisted of eight men.(24) Two of them were designated experts: Hector Boutheroue, sieur de Bourgneuf, and Etienne Jacquinot, sieur de Vaurose. Two qualified as personnes capables et expérimentées: Marc de Noé, sieur de Guitoud, and Jean Avessens, sieur de Tarabel. The remaining four served as "géomètres ... pris pour travailler avec lesdits experts à la vérification desdits ouvrages, suivant l'indication qui leur sera faite par ... Riquet." They were MM. Andréossi, Bressieux, Cavalier, and Perafigue. What sort of expertise did the eight committee members bring to the task of evaluating Riquet's plan?
The two experts came from quite different backgrounds. Vaurose was Directeur Général des Gabelles for Provence and Dauphiné. His name appears in the documents only in connection with this one commission, and nothing there suggests any experience or know-how as an engineer. By contrast, Bourgneuf seems to have had considerable experience with canals and waterworks.(25) One of three sons of François Boutheroue, Seigneur des Marais, he had worked with his eldest brother Guillaume and the latter's brother-in-law, Jacques Guyon, to complete the Canal de Briare, begun in 1604 as part of the system linking the Loire and the Seine but then abandoned until 1638 when the two brothers-in-law obtained letters-patent to finish the job. Bourgneuf became one of the proprietors of the canal after its completion in 1642 --when he acquired his title is not clear-- but evidently found building such projects more interesting than running them. Although there is no information at hand about his activities from the early 1640s to the early '60s, the manner of his appearance in the documents of Colbert's public works suggests that he had acquired some sort of reputation as an engineer. For his association with Colbert started off with the senior position on the commission to examine Riquet's plans and was followed in 1665 by appointment as Directeur des Travaux on the project to render the Lot River navigable. After some ten years on that project he obtained an independent contract to clear the still unnavigable sections of the Seine, Marne, Aube, and some minor tributaries of the Seine in return for twenty years' tolls on those sections.
Two other pieces of information about Bourgneuf enhance his value as an example of the expertise available to Colbert. First, he seems to have acquired whatever know-how he had entirely from activities in the private sector. A man of some reputation, he does not appear among the ingénieurs du roi on any of Blanchard's lists, nor did Colbert order him about as he did Clerville, Levau, or later La Feuille. Colbert contracted for Bourgneuf's services; he did not command them. Second, a pair of separately recorded episodes sheds light on the limits of Bourgneuf's expertise. During the final planning of the Languedoc Canal Bourgneuf objected to Riquet's proposal to build locks requiring gates of some 18 toises (= ca. 108 ft.) in height. Bourgneuf simply doubted that such gates were feasible, and it took considerable argument from Riquet to overcome those doubts. It was, of course, a matter of judgment. But one may wonder about Bourgneuf's judgment in light of what took place a year later on the Lot project. The specific problem that had brought a team of experts into Intendant Pellot's hands in May 1665 (cf. above, p.14) stemmed from Bourgneuf's deficiencies as an engineer:
Je suis en cette ville, [wrote Pellot], il y a plus de huit jours, avec M. le Chevalier de Clerville, les sieurs René [! for Renier] Jansse, Desjardins, de Bourgneuf, ingénieurs, et divers maîtres maçons et maîtres charpentiers des plus habiles que nous avons pu pu trouver. Nous avons remarqué beaucoup de manquements aux trois écluses que ledit de Bourgneuf a faites; l'on réparera ces manquements par l'avis de tous ces gens experts, ...(26)
Whatever Bourgneuf knew about the building of canals, he clearly had something to learn about the design and construction of locks. As will emerge from the discussion to follow, expertise on that subject in particular was hard to find, which makes it all the more curious that Riquet should have possessed it. For the moment, however, Bourgneuf's failure gives shape to our view of what Colbert could expect from a man he deemed an expert.
Practically nothing is readily available to convey the sense in which Avessens and Noé qualified as personnes capables et expérimentées. Avessens has left no trace of himself outside the documents pertaining to the commission. Of Noé we know that he was born in 1613, rose from captain of infantry in 1637 to maréchal de camp in 1651, was named gentilhomme de la chambre in 1657, and held the position of premier lieutenant du roi at Aigues-Mortes from 1660 on.(27) One would assume from his presence on the commission that he had some standing as a military engineer but, if so, one would then expect to find his name among the ingénieurs du roi cited by Blanchard, but it is not there. Nor does it appear in any of the documents of Colbert's other public works. What did Colbert --or, as the case may be, the Etats de Languedoc-- expect to learn from these two men?
Two of the four mathematicians on the commission also appear there for the first and last time: Bressieux and Perafigue remain for now mere names.(28) By contrast, Jean Cavalier carried out the responsibilities of an ingénieur du roi, although --again-- his name does not appear on Blanchard's lists: he was contrôleur des fortifications du Languedoc and hence under Colbert's command.(29) François Andréossi's career began with his assignment to the commission. Born in 1633, he had studied canal construction on various sites in Italy. When work on the Languedoc Canal got underway, Riquet thought enough of Andréossi's talents to make him one of the eleven inspectors-general who shared responsibility for the canal directly under Riquet as Director-General.(30) Andréossi had supervision over the Castelnaudary section throughout the project. He also appears to have had aspirations beyond that position, for in 1670 he prepared and published a chart of the canal entirely without authorization from Riquet. Although Colbert fully supported Riquet's complaints and gave him a free hand in punishing Andréossi, whom Riquet referred to as mon employé, the insubordinate subordinate remained on the staff and managed by various means to attach his name so firmly to the enterprise that his descendents tried to claim him as its initiator and designer.(31)
Of the eight members of the commission, then, only two appear to have had any experience or know-how in the construction of canals. Only one of them contributed to the canal they had been called upon to evaluate. One wonders in retrospect about the quality of their evaluation, and Colbert's quick replacement of the commission by Clerville only sharpens the question of what the minister expected of it in the first place.
A similar question arises at the next point of decision about the canal. When, contrary to the original plans, Riquet completed the experimental trench for the feeder system along a route that avoided most of the anticipated difficulties, Colbert assigned the intendants Tubeuf and de Bezons to inspect the job and report on it. Tubeuf felt the need for expert advice and so brought in Clerville and a certain Renier-Jansse, two of the three men just recently summoned by Pellot to consult on Bourgneuf's defective locks. For reasons that are not clear from Tubeuf's subsequent report to Colbert, Jansse stole a march on his colleagues and visited the project alone before making a joint inspection. He did not approve of what he saw and informed Tubeuf that he would be transmitting a separate report to Colbert. Tubeuf for his part urged Colbert to disregard Jansse's views on the grounds that "... [il] s'entend mieux aux ports et aux ouvrages de mer, qu'à ceux de terre ferme, d'autant plus que M. de Riquet répond du succes de la chose.''(32) Since Jansse was in Normandy before the end of the year to work on port facilities there,(33) one can believe Tubeuf's report of the engineer's expertise, but it is nonetheless striking how a supposed non-expert evaluated an expert's advice when it ran counter to what Tubeuf wanted to hear. Beneath the superstructure of commissions and inspectors stood a local magnate and entrepreneur who evidently knew what he was doing and more importantly was willing to risk his own money to show that he knew. Who could contradict him, and on what authority?
Colbert knew that if he wanted a canal in Languedoc he would have to let Riquet build it as a private venture backed by royal capital but let out on a long-term contract. Once Clerville's specifications and estimates had been jointly accepted by Riquet and the government, and Riquet had received the land and offices by which the price would be met, Colbert lost direct control over the project.(34) He had the authority to inspect ongoing work to be sure the specifications were being met, but he could not dictate to Riquet how to meet them. Moreover, as an experienced engineer Clerville had known that many details of the canal could not be specified in advance.(35) Riquet would have to solve some problems as they arose, and the contract left their solution to him. Colbert could advise and consent, but he could not command.
By the same token, Riquet was building a facility for public use and with evident effect on the nation's commercial and military well-being. If on the one hand he should succeed, the canal would have to be adequate to the demands placed on it. If on the other hand he should fail and forfeit his investment, the nation would be left with a large project to be completed by public means lest its own investment go to waste. Hence, Colbert had no intention of letting the canal proceed unsupervised, nor would he stand for less than the best work all along the way (even if the criteria of "best" were not at all clear). With his usual administrative skill, he angled his way toward some arrangement by which to direct the canal without having control over it.
A ready contrast in the correspondence with Riquet shows how delicately Colbert proceeded toward that goal and reveals his own perception of the uncertainties of the arrangement. While building the canal, Riquet continued to function as fermier-général des gabelles in Languedoc. From the start he had difficulty keeping the revenues of the two offices separate; on various occasions his tardiness in forwarding the tax revenues gave Colbert reason to suspect that they were going to meet expenses of the canal.(36) When that happened, Colbert held back no punches. He scolded Riquet, ordered him to make the payments promptly at the risk of royal disfavor and loss of commission, and warned him to avoid mingling the funds in the future. When, in the early 1670s, Riquet faced tax revolts in his farm, Colbert sternly admonished him to get the situation under control or to step aside and let the intendant's troops do the job. In the realm of finance, the relation of Colbert and Riquet was clear, and Riquet obeyed.
By contrast, when discussing the canal Colbert never ordered Riquet, nor did he give vent to his dissatisfaction in any but the most diplomatic terms. When it came to constructing canals, Colbert lacked more than administrative authority over Riquet; he lacked the authority of personal expertise, and he lacked the authority of recognized experts under his command. The peculiarity of the situation becomes clear when one considers the inspectors Colbert eventually assigned to the canal, their working relations with Riquet, Riquet's response to criticism, and his own organization of the project.
Colbert raised the issue of inspection right at the outset. "Il est certain," he wrote Riquet in March 1667,
qu'il n'y a rien de si nécessaire que d'établir, pour avoir la conduite et l'inspection sur votre travail, un homme qui ait toutes les qualités propres pour se bien acquitter de cet emploi et qui puisse répondre pertinemment sur les choses qui lui seront confiées.(37)
Colbert asked Riquet to consult with Clerville and to forward the name of a joint candidate. But, despite the urgent tone of Colbert's request, two years passed before anyone fitting the description was appointed to the task of inspecting the canal. Or rather, it seems that Clerville simply assumed the task himself and, at the outset at least, left Riquet to his own devices. And at the outset at least that arrangement seemed satisfactory to Colbert. Whatever his anger over Riquet's fiscal sloppiness, the minister welcomed Riquet's expectations of completing the canal ahead of schedule, expectations strengthened by rapid progress on the feeder canal. Moreover, as Clerville found it increasingly difficult to settle the technical details of the continuation of the canal from Trèbes and of the new works at the port of Cette, and to find entrepreneurs to undertake the work, Riquet showed himself eager to step in and help. By all evidence, he had formed a comfortable collaboration with Clerville.
By 1669 Colbert, prompted perhaps by Intendant de Bezons, began to suspect that the two engineers agreed too readily. In April they had submitted independent estimates for the continuation of the canal and for the port of Cette. The estimates did not differ significantly. In responding to Clerville, Colbert wondered why it should cost 16 livres 10 sous to move a cubic toise (~ 8 cubic yards) of stone some 200 toises (1200 ft.) and why digging a canal in Languedoc should cost 4 livres per cubic toise when digging one at Le Havre cost only 50 sous per cubic toise.(38) Surely Riquet and Clerville could do better than that, either by finding cheaper contractors or by inventing machines that move rocks more efficiently. Furthermore, Colbert was disturbed by Clerville's report that some of the locks on the completed section lacked adequate reinforcement and were not holding tight. The minister insisted that his engineer move immediately to remedy the existing problems and to establish safeguards against future defects. Colbert wrote, that is, as if Clerville had technical supervision over the project.
At the same time, however, Colbert wrote to Riquet to assure him that "je me repose entièrement sur vous de l'exécution de ce grand dessein" and to express confidence that "par la suite du temps et par la pratique, vous trouverez sans doute beaucoup de moyens d'en diminuer la dépense." Colbert approached the matter of the faulty locks obliquely by citing his knowledge of the problem via Clerville's reports and emphasizing the need for "ouvrages si solides qu'ils puissent être d'une éternelle durée."(39)
A month later, still assuring Riquet that "je me fie entièrement à vous du succès de cette grande entreprise," Colbert nonetheless reminded him of the need for a royal agent on the spot --if only "pour être le témoin oculaire de la chaleur et du zèle avec lesquels vous exécutez cette grande entreprise"--and introduced a Sieur de la Feuille. His assignment, Colbert told Riquet, was to
demeurer incessamment sur vos travaux, prendre soin avec vous de leur conduite, et bien observer que tous les devis et desseins de M. le chevalier de Clerville, et les marchés que vous en avez faits, soient bien exécutés.(40)
That was what Colbert told Riquet. La Feuille carried a far more detailed and candid set of instructions.(41) He was replacing Clerville, who had orders to go to Provence for "divers ouvrages considérables que Sa Majesté y a ordonnés." After reviewing all the records of both parts of the canal, including the most recent reports, La Feuille was to proceed to Toulouse and there report to the intendant de Bezons and deliver letters of introduction to Clerville and Riquet. All decisions made by de Bezons and Clerville prior to La Feuille's arrival would stand. In particular, if the contracts for the continuation and the port of Cette had already been awarded, La Feuille was simply to get hold of the estimates and specifications; if not, he was to assist in securing the best bids. Then he was to accompany Clerville on the latter's final tour of inspection. Once Clerville had left, La Feuille had a firm agenda, which reflected Colbert's main concerns about the project. First of all, he had to get work securely underway on the jetties at Cap de Cette. While he was at it, some inventiveness would help:
Comme il ne s'agit dans ce travail que de prendre de la pierre aux lieux où elle se trouvera et la jeter incessamment dans la mer pour former la jetée du môle, le sieur de La Feuille pourra peut-être trouver des moyens de faciliter ce travail par les machines qu'il pourra inventer par la connaissance des mécaniques.
If La Feuille came up with such a machine, Colbert expected him either to force the entrepreneur to lower the price of the job or to break the contract and take over the work himself, using the machine to best advantage. After three years' correspondence with Clerville and Riquet on the facilities at Cette, Colbert still thought that building a long jetty stable enough to withstand tides and storms involved nothing more than "throwing rocks into the water" and that doing the job more efficiently meant designing a machine to throw them in faster. One can find no more telling example of the shortage of expertise and of its lack of organization.(42)
Ironically, the next item on Colbert's immediate agenda for La Feuille was a series of inspections of the feeder canal under various conditions to check the stability of the stone embankments, a question of the proper placement of rocks. Thereafter, he was to proceed to the Toulouse-Trèbes section, focusing particularly on the locks to see if they were solid and to determine from the accounts whether each lock had cost precisely what had been paid for it. Finally (as far as the canal was concerned), if by then Riquet had assumed responsibility for the section from Trèbes to Thau, La Feuille was to make sure it got off to a good start. Clearly, La Feuille had major responsibilities, in fact more explicit than those exercised by Clerville, who after all was the ranking military engineer in the country. Yet, La Feuille had none of Clerville's rank. Colbert therefore expressly urged the need for diplomacy:
Il doit surtout s'appliquer à se concilier les esprits qui peuvent servir à contribuer au succès de toutes ces grandes entreprises. Pour cet effet, il doit vivre avec le sieur de Bezons dans une grande déférence, devant agir en tout comme son commis, exécuter ses ordres, et lui donner part de tout ce qui se passera; c'est de quoi il doit l'assurer et lui dire, aussitôt qu'il sera arrivé auprès de lui, qu'il a ordre d'en user ainsi. Il doit en user de même avec le chevalier de Clerville.
Il doit ménager avec soin l'esprit du sieur Riquet, qui s'est fait honneur de servir en cette entreprise et qui a agi jusqu'à présent avec succès, en sorte qu'il sera plus avantageux de lui confier l'exécution de toute l'entreprise que la diviser.
La Feuille carried out the responsibilities as chief consulting engineer de facto for the duration of the canal's construction, that is until 1682. Correspondence passed back and forth constantly between him and Colbert. Yet, who was he, where did he come from, what training did he have, where did he go afterward; for that matter, what was his full name? On all these questions all of the sources consulted are silent. La Feuille appears out of nowhere to take on an assignment requiring extensive expertise and the utmost delicacy in dealing with other people. Where did Colbert get him? No one seems to know.(43)
If we do not know today, what did Riquet and his associates know about La Feuille at the time? Did he have a reputation from which to draw authority for his advice, especially when it ran counter to what Riquet intended? From the administrative correspondence it would seem that he did not, that on the contrary he had a great deal to learn when he arrived on the job and that he deferred to Riquet on most technical matters. Colbert's instructions stressed two such technical matters: the "solidity" (the criteria are never stated) of the locks on the canal and the design and construction of the jetties at Cette. Indeed, it would appear that his dissatisfaction with Clerville's performance in these matters, and perhaps especially with the old engineer's indulgence of Riquet, prompted Colbert to send La Feuille as a replacement. Yet La Feuille could make little contribution toward solving either problem. When the new inspector arrived at the canal during the summer of 1669, he found the lock that had burst that spring still unrepaired. Instead of giving advice, however, he apparently sought it, since Colbert wrote in response:
Quoique je croie que la maçonnerie de briques bien cuites soit aussi bonne que celle de pierres, je ne laisserai pas de faire assembler nos plus habiles maçons pour prendre leurs avis, et aussitôt que je serai informé de celle qu'ils estiment la meilleure, je vous en ferai part.(44)
That advice never did come from Paris, but in the meantime Riquet, egged on perhaps by Colbert's repeated reminders, worked out a new design for the lock, which he forwarded along with a model to the minister in March 1670 with the request "de faire examiner cette écluse par des entendus, car il serait bien aise d'avoir leur avis: pour [moi], [j']en [ai] l'expérience."(45) Riquet did not mention La Feuille, nor did Colbert in his initial response. Rather, he wrote to say that he would confer on the design with Clerville, who happened to be in Paris at the time, and then two weeks later warned that one feature of the new lock had been tried at the Canal de Briare; it had not worked there, and Riquet would be well advised to drop it.(46)
In May 1670 Colbert wrote to La Feuille, not to seek his recommendations concerning the new design but rather to return "le mémoire que j'ai apostillé pour régler plusieurs changements qui se doivent faire dans la construction des écluses."46 That the new inspector had contributed little if anything to the deliberations would seem to follow from two suggestions that Colbert then made. First, if La Feuille could get away from the canal toward the end of summer, when workers were released for harvest, he should visit Holland to look at "les ouvrages des canaux, des écluses et des moulins, ce qui sans doute vous donnerait beaucoup de lumières pour la construction des travaux dont le Roi vous a confié le soin." Revealing one of the first signs of awareness of the need to develop expertise, Colbert added that La Feuille might take along "quelque architecte habile ou quelque jeune homme qui eût disposition à le devenir.' Second, the minister offered La Feuille the services of a Dutch carpenter named Vos, who was distinguishing himself by his work at Le Havre.(47)
La Feuille did travel to Holland in September 1670. What he learned there is not clear from the sources, which also give two versions of what he found on his return. On the one hand, Riquet wrote to Clerville in April 1671 that the new locks had met with success:
Des que vous aurez inspecté mes travaux, vous conviendrez que le canal et les écluses sont de sorte qu'il ne saurait être mieux. M. de la Feuille, qui vient, comme vous savez, d'Hollande, en convient, et que les empellements de ma maniere sont d'excellence et de service a être imités par tous les endroits ou il y a des canaux.(48)
On the other hand, the man who reportedly agreed with Riquet's results asked Colbert to despatch Vos to Languedoc. La Feuille, at least, needed more advice. Vos had caught Colbert's attention through the construction of a bridge and a lock at Le Havre, and apparently on that basis alone received a broad-ranging commission similar to that issued the various ingénieurs du roi. On his way to the canal in September 1671 he was supposed to stop in at Lyon to consult on the reconstruction of the Rhone bridge there and then move on to Avignon, where another bridge needed his expert eye. After joining La Feuille either at Avignon or at Montpellier, Vos was to observe
...la manière dont il sera le plus avantageux de faire les ponts sur le canal de communication des mers, les portes des écluses, les barrieres pour empêcher les ensablements, et les estacades a entrée du port de Cette, afin d'assurer contre les différents efforts de la mer le bout des deux jetées qui doivent être faites pour former ledit port au cap de Cette.
Colbert left the details of on-site briefing to La Feuille, but he looked to Vos for full advice on how to make the works solid and how to reduce their price to a minimum. After inspecting the canal, Vos was to inspect the projects on the rivers Agout, Lot, and Baise and then, having filed his report with Colbert, return "diligemment" to Le Havre.(49)
In short, Colbert turned to Vos for expertise on all the engineering problems for which Riquet had been awarded contracts and over which La Feuille maintained supposedly expert supervision. As in the case of La Feuille, the available sources give no hint of the past or future of the Dutch carpenter-engineer and hence of the reputation he might have carried with him on his tour of inspection. Riquet was not impressed by the news of Vos's coming. On the question of the lock gates especially, Riquet agreed to inspection but he was sure that Vos "en apprendrait plus ici qu'il n'en saurait en y venant."(50) Vos for his part apparently knew enough, or thought he knew enough, to submit a memoir critical of Riquet's locks, which Colbert acted on eventually by despatching two of Vos's apprentices to work on the project.(51) The subject of the locks then disappears from the correspondence.
About a year after the problem of lock design was settled, or at least reached an interim solution, a new focus of conflict emerged, provoked perhaps by Vos's inspection of the work at Cette. Informed in early summer that Riquet, in concert with La Feuille, had put into effect a schedule that would set in 200 toises of the second jetty, Colbert worried lest that ambitious goal sacrifice solidity for speed, especially by using rocks smaller than cal
ENGINEERING AND PUBLIC WORKS UNDER COLBERT, 1662-83
Michael S. Mahoney
Princeton University
©1980, 1996 Michael S. Mahoney - Draft Version - Not for Distribution Without Permission
What follows began as a search for a community that prefigured a profession. The idea that such a community might exist stemmed from the observation, made in passing during another investigation, that various documents of Colbert's administration repeatedly referred to "engineers" engaged in public works. Enough different people bore the title to suggest that it was being used to denote a distinct occupation and a delimited form of know-how. Enough large-scale projects were underway to suggest that engineers were in demand and that in meeting that demand they might display patterns of group behavior indicative of a growing sense of common purpose. The search was to be aimed at eliciting those patterns and at exploring the common traits that underlay the engineers' sense of group identity.
An unpublished examination of the Italian engineering community during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries formed the model. Working in 1972 from published sources, H.T. Daughtrey, a graduate student in the Program in History and Philosophy of Science(1), had found a sizable community of people who between the 1460s and the 1520s moved from town to town to work on the large public-works projects characteristic of the despotic era. The same names appeared in the records of various opere, while individuals displayed what might be called a common résumé of employment. So marked was the common pattern that one could see clearly the changes wrought on it when the French invasion brought a halt to the building boom. Only a few engineers found employment in Rome, the one city still able to mount major projects. Large numbers of their colleagues emigrated throughout Europe to undertake, supervise, or consult on works in Hungary, Bohemia, Muscovy, Poland, Scandinavia, the Low Countries, and even France. A small group stayed home in Italy but adapted its practice to a new set of canons. This group, which one might call the "academic engineers", turned to the recovery of ancient treatises on machines and structures and to the composition of their own studies of the subjects. Galileo is an outgrowth of that new pattern of engineering, which gradually changed a practical tradition into a learned discipline.
On closer examination, it turned out that Colbert's administrative documents would not lend themselves to establishing such large-scale patterns.(2) Despite his reputation for central organization, his portfolios gave him authority over only a portion of the activities that concerned engineers at the time, and even that authority was only partial. Other sources show that many engineers never came into Colbert's orbit and that some who did moved in and out quite easily. But, perhaps because roads, bridges, canals, and harbors in France have not yet interested scholars as much as have cathedrals, palaces, bridges, and canals in Italy, there are not enough other sources to supplement Colbert's records and to make an exploration of Daughtrey's sort possible. For that, one must turn to the archives, and they lie well beyond the scope of the present essay.
A study that has appeared within the past year shows what the archives might reveal. In Les ingénieurs du "Roy" de Louis XIV a Louis XVI (Montpellier, 1979) Anne Blanchard has examined the shifts in social patterns among the total of 1490 military engineers of the Corps des Fortifications during the roughly one hundred years between its formation in 1691 and the end of the Ancien Regime. She sets out as her main lines of inquiry: (l) the emergence of a conscience de corps during the years both preceding and following its organization, (2) the special status of engineers within the army, (3) the social origins and patterns of recruitment of engineers in the Corps, (4) the development of personal and familial alliances and lines of influence, and (5) the role of engineers in the science of the eighteenth century.
In the book's first two chapters, which pertain to the period of concern to us here, Blanchard reviews the origins of military engineering in Europe from the early fifteenth century and then begins her account in earnest with the establishment in 1691 of a single Departement des Fortifications uniting the separate jurisdictions of the minister of war (Le Tellier, then Louvois) and of the minister of the navy (Colbert, then Seignelay) and placing the two groups of engineers under the effective guidance of Vauban. 112 men came from the navy, 164 from the army, to form a total original corps of 276 engineers. Extensive research in the Archives de la Guerre, the Archives du Génie, and various provincial archives yielded information about the birthplace of 218, about the social origins of 201, and about the occupations of the fathers of 148 of those 201. The two groups displayed some marked differences. For example, army engineers were recruited from all over France, although they tended to come mostly from the poorer regions (Nivernais, southern Champagne) and hardly at all from the provinces under navy administration. Rural origins predominated, as did noble lines. By contrast, the naval engineers came largely from the provinces administered by the Colberts, from the cities in those provinces, and from the bourgeois families in those cities. Both groups consisted largely of first-generation engineers; only a few men were following in their fathers' footsteps, more of them in the navy than in the army.
As interesting and revealing as Blanchard's findings here and in succeeding chapters are for the social history of one particular group of engineers, they do not say much about engineering and its formation into a profession. They cannot, for they have been collected and analyzed on the premiss that engineering constituted a profession from the outset and that not its formation, but rather its adaptation to competing structures of organization in the military is what is problematical.(3) Although Blanchard includes some remarks about the practice of military engineering, for her purposes it does not matter what the engineers did and how what they did distinguished them from other people doing similar things,(4) but rather who they were and whence they came and how their origin and status compare with those of officers of other branches of the military. For that reason, although her study shows what use might be made of the archives to answer the questions raised above, it does not itself make that use of them.
That is not only because Blanchard's investigation has a different focus, but also because its focus shades another group of engineers who did the king's work and misses completely engineers in the private sector on whom the government was forced to rely when its own resources proved insufficient. For Colbert wore three hats under Louis XIV: Contrôleur Général des Finances, Secrétaire d'Etat Pour la Marine, and Surintendant des Bâtiments. The navy portfolio gave him supervision over construction of harbors, shore installations, ships, and coastal waterways. As overseer of the king's buildings, Colbert supervised such projects as the construction of the Louvre, Versailles, and the waterworks at Marly. Somewhere in between these two portfolios, and somehow as an extension of the third, i.e. finance, fell responsibility for improving and enlarging the network of commerce and communication in the realm, i.e. its system of roads, rivers, canals, and bridges.
To be sure, commerce and defense often went hand in hand. A road or bridge strengthened to bear heavy transport also facilitated the movement of heavy artillery, and canal barges drew no less water than light naval vessels. On those grounds one could quite properly employ royal military and naval engineers on civil projects. But much of Colbert's concern with transportation explicitly stemmed from commercial goals and hence served civilian purposes which, however laudable, could not compete with military needs when it was a matter of the allocation of scarce resources.
For these projects Colbert employed a sizable number of identifiable people whom he called ingénieurs, but not many of whom seem to have been considered ingénieurs du roi and hence to have been consolidated into Vauban's single corps in 1691. These engineers are people whom Blanchard has not investigated,(5) but about whom one would like to know some of the things she has found out about the military engineers, in particular the sources and means of recruitment and the existence or development of some sort of conscience de corps as "civil" engineers.(6) For it seems clear that the people in question constitute the roots of the later service of ponts et chaussées, as well as of the private engineering enterprises that operated alongside the government forces.(7)
The very existence of these "civil" engineers brings out clearly a question that Blanchard's focus on military engineering --and in particular her emphasis on Louvois and Vauban rather than on Colbert and Clerville-- enabled her to avoid, to wit, the nature and source of the expertise required to carry out Colbert's civil projects. Fortification, defilade, sapping, and emplacement of artillery were to an appreciable extent matters of military experience; at least, they were until eighteenth-century engineers developed a body of pertinent theory. Over and above such military experience Vauban sought little more than the longstanding know-how of architects and master masons to transform his drawings into fortresses.
By contrast, canals set forth ever new challenges of laying constant gradients over changing terrain (indeed of determining whether a desired gradient is possible between two widely separated points), of channeling and securing channels through different soil conditions (in particular, where sand is present), of maintaining the supply of water, and of designing and constructing locks. Making bridges wide enough and sturdy enough for heavy traffic while at the same time reducing the number of piers to permit unrestricted flow of river traffic posed structural problems for which no body of theory --indeed, very little practical experience-- yet existed. Yet, clearly such projects were successfully carried out and hence equally clearly some people at the time knew how to do these things or at least had enough know-how to teach themselves on the job. Who were these people? How did they learn what they knew? What did they know of one another? How did Colbert and his subordinates find them? Did the minister make an effort to organize them? If so, how? If not, did they move toward organizing themselves in any way? Did they, for example, begin to develop any sense of community? In short, what patterns, if any, can one find of social cohesion among people whose essential common characteristic is a newly valued body of knowledge, or rather of know-how, and how did those patterns come to be formed?
For the engineers that did come into Colbert's orbit, then, the question of what they knew and how they knew it becomes at least as important as who they were and where they came from, and correlations between the two sets of questions would offer insights of considerable depth. Unfortunately, the published sources do not contain sufficient information for satisfactory answers to either set of questions, much less for the desired correlations. Almost by way of compensation, however, they do yield some revealing glimpses into the personal and social consciousness of people whose distinction derives from special know-how. That is, they reveal something about the status of expertise in engineering in the late seventeenth century. What they show touches in turn on the nature of the conscience de corps that underlies organized expertise in general and professionalized expertise in particular.
Before looking at specific examples, it might help to consider the question in the abstract, though keeping in mind the various pitfalls into which the Davis Seminar has fallen over the past year and a half. Whatever the distinctive features of a profession, it is but one form of organized, socially recognized expertise. A guild is another, a bureaucracy another, a priesthood yet another. Not all forms of special knowledge or skill fit this general criterion. A secret brotherhood or a band of criminals may be organized, but it lacks social recognition; prophets may enjoy immense prestige, but they seldom join with other prophets to form an organization.
Implicit in the formation of any group of expert practitioners, then, is the question of expertise itself. That question readily breaks down into a series of historical inquiries. When and how did a certain body of skills or knowledge come to be recognized as expertise possessed by only a few people? By what criteria were the true possessors of expertise distinguished from mere claimants, and who made the distinction? When and how did a given society begin to think it useful or important to make the distinction officially? Some examples may elucidate these questions.
In any society there are many skills that are commonly possessed even if not commonly exercised. In a farming community, for example, most people know how to plow, sow, tend, and reap; how to repair tools or even make them; how to raise a barn; how to tend animals and cure them; how to deliver babies; and so on. None of these skills is considered expertise. Anyone claiming special possession would surely meet with the derisive rebuttal, "Everyone knows how to do that!" Yet, at various times in history, certain skills or forms of knowledge have reached a stage of difficulty or complexity that has required special training and practice, not to say exclusive attention, with the result that only a few people in fact possess them. Perhaps anyone can dig irrigation ditches, but only a few people have the know-how to build a canal between two rivers.(8) A footbridge is not the same as a railroad trestle. Thus, around the turn of the fifteenth century, the engineer began to emerge as a special practitioner distinct from the mass of masons, carpenters, and surveyors that made up the building trades, just as earlier each of these guild members achieved the status of knowing something that not everyone knew. At a certain point, people's general know-how proves inadequate to the task, and they call in special skill.
At that point, however, they face the question of determining whether someone in truth possesses the expertise he professes to have. Opposite the expert stands the charlatan who, whatever his claims, does not really know that much more than the non-expert. By what criteria shall one decide? Shall one look to a voluntary organization of all those who, possessing the know-how, know how to recognize others who have it? Shall one ask to see a certificate of training from a school of some sort which, operated by experts, has demonstrated its ability to train other experts? Shall one expect a license from the government, which in its wisdom knows how to detect the possession of expertise? With the recognition of the existence of expertise comes the problem of recognizing the expert.
In different places at different times, and for different kinds of expertise, the problem of recognition has had varying levels of social value and importance. In early modern Europe, the medical profession seems to have worried about charlatans much more than did the population at large. The physicians knew they had expertise and how to test for its possession by others, but their patients apparently did not place great weight on the profession's certification of practitioners. By contrast, society at large did worry about false priests and supported dire punishment for claimants found lacking by the recognized body of experts. Today, we demand extensive certification and licensing of our physicians but allow the widest possible latitude to those professing priesthood.
It was not as an afterthought that the designation "engineer" first came into circulation in the early fifteenth century. It denoted possession of a new form of expertise called forth by new problems in construction. Brunelleschi is the classic example. He earned the title by designing and executing the dome of the church of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, a task to which the traditional methods of the pertinent construction guilds were clearly inadequate. His achievement impressed people by its novelty and ingenuity, and so the term ingegnere applied to men like Brunelleschi continued at first to carry the connotations of its Latin root ingenium and hence to single a person out rather than to identify him with a group. Not until the construction boom of the later fifteenth century required similar and repeated ingenuity from a relatively large number of ingegneri did the title start to denote simply the possession of a certain know-how. Even then it was know-how largely claimed by reputation rather than by training or by attachment to an organized group, and one demonstrated one's possession of expertise by getting the job done.
That remained the case throughout the sixteenth century, and at the beginning of the seventeenth in France one still finds a small number of individuals of considerable reputation at work on singular projects, while the bulk of public works was left in the hands of non-experts, i.e. of people whose know-how attracted no distinctive recognition, perhaps because it was not in fact particularly sophisticated know-how. Just as the government relied on corvée labor to build roads and bridges, so it largely relied on the general knowledge of local administrators of how to build them.(9) Colbert seems to have been the first to change that pattern. His program of public works involved projects of unprecedented scale and complexity, if only by letting the commercial ends make demands on the technical means rather than conversely. To plan, execute, and supervise these projects Colbert needed expertise that neither he nor his administrative officials possessed. Perhaps because of the expectations derived from longstanding practice, he did not always recognize that need. Free with his own advice, he sometimes expected intendants to act as engineers. At other times, however, he knew he lacked the know-how, but then he was not always sure how to get hold of someone who had it, nor of whether the person he chose did in fact have it. Moreover, even when he was sure, he faced the problem of convincing others who, possessing it themselves, recognized no authority other than their own. Colbert faced the problem of organizing expertise that up until that time had made no move toward organizing itself. Inherent in the problem of organization was the question of recognition. A closer look at some examples will clarify the situation.(10)
In the years immediately after assuming his ministerial responsibilities Colbert sent out three engineers on tours of inspection of ongoing and projected public works. Clerville, the Commissaire Général des Fortifications returning to Marseilles to check on construction of a citadel there, received orders to look into a few matters along the way. The king wanted, first of all, to join the Loire and the Seine by a canal at Pithiviers and by the Etampes River. Then he wanted to connect the Loire with the Saône which, flowing into the Rhone, led ultimately to the Mediterranean. Clerville was to visit the sites; wherever he went he was to find out what rivers could be made navigable and what it would take to make them so. Passing through Lyon, he should inspect the repairs being made on the Rhone bridge and offer any necessary advice. Marseilles and the citadel would not end his journey. Once his work there was completed, he was to proceed to Languedoc and examine the plans for a canal from Beaucaire to Aigues-Mortes and for a harbor at its mouth. While he was at it, he could check "all the harbors, channels, and coasts of that province and draw up a precise memoir of everything that can be done to facilitate navigation and commerce by sea, which has been wholly ruined by the lack of harbors." Then Clerville was to take a careful look at a plan to join the Atlantic and the Mediterranean by a canal between the Aude and Tarn Rivers; the feasibility of this venture demanded special attention for its potential benefits. Thereafter, the engineer should check on the navigability of the Bidassoa River near Hendaye and then proceed north along the Atlantic coast from St.-Jean-de-Luz to Bordeaux to scout for a suitable place to construct a harbor. Chateau-Trompette, under construction, was his next destination, followed by a trip along the Gironde to inspect the tower at Cordouan and to consider bypassing it by a canal from Royan to the Seudre River. Finally, he was to visit the emplacements at Brouages, La Rochelle, Ile de Ré, and Ile d'Oleron to see to their maintenance, and then to inspect two locations proposed by Colbert de Terron for harbors capable of holding the entire French fleet along with its arsenals. The minister expected a full report on Clerville's return.(11)
Two years later, in April 1665, the engineer Levau carried out a more modest mission. Starting at Sainte-Maxence on the Oise and moving then to Creil, he inspected all bridges and roads at the two towns before stopping back at Paris to report. Thereafter he headed out along the Loire to check progress on the construction or repair of bridges at Orleans, Beaugency, Jargeau, Gien, Montargis, and Cosne; from La Charité to Nevers, he inspected all the works underway. Moving over to the Yonne, he started back toward Paris by way of Auxerre, Seignelay, Joigny, Sens, and Montereau, looking at bridges and levées all the way.(12)
At the same time, the engineer Chamois went up the Marne, worked his way back and forth between the Aube and the Seine through what are now the departments of Aube and Seine-et-Marne.(13) After surveying the possibility of making the Voulzie River navigable from Provins to the Seine near Bray, he then covered the entire Aube from Nogent-sur-Seine to Bar-sur-Aube, determining precisely what was required to make the river navigable from the proposed canal downriver to its junction with the Oise. Then he joined a certain Morel and with him inspected all the rivers of Champagne, Trois-Evêchés, and Lorraine, with an eye toward making them navigable. From this journey he proceeded to Polisy between Troyes and Nogent to see that work got underway to clear the Seine over the section Polisy-Nogent. When all that had been accomplished, Chamois retraced his entire route to satisfy himself that work was progressing before he returned to report to Colbert; he had until the end of summer if necessary to complete the double tour.
The above tours de France date from the beginning of Colbert's ministry and only hint at the plans he had for developing the roads, rivers, harbors, bridges, and flood-control works of the country.(14) By the mid-1670s scarcely a river remained untouched by dredges and earthworks, several major canals were underway, and the town of Grenoble, among others, was safe from the ravages of its flood-prone river. France was a-building, with Colbert as chief contractor, drawing out every penny of taxes and dues and every man-hour of corvée owed the Crown to help pay for his projects. Where current income proved insufficient, he was ready to sell off capital, paying for projects with fiefs, customs, monopolies, and offices.
Yet, at the outset at least, Colbert apparently gave little thought to another condition of carrying out his grand plans, namely, to engineers with the knowledge and experience to do the job. Where was he to find people who knew how to dredge rivers without collapsing the banks, to prevent the flow of sand into channels, to build dikes and levees that could withstand the undercutting of deflected currents, to cut feeder canals over rough terrain, to build locks, dams, jetties, and piers? Who could design new and stronger bridges and roads to carry increased loads of goods flowing over the country?
An example or two will help to suggest the limits of his resources in these areas. On 21 April 1666 the intendant Bouchu wrote to Colbert to report a halt in progress on the proposed canal linking the Loire and the Saône:
Vous trouverez ci-joint un procès-verbal que j'ai dressé en suite des publications qui ont été faites pendant six dimanches consécutifs dans les villes de Dijon, Châlon et Lyon, des ouvrages à faire pour la transnavigation de Saône en Loire, et la communication des mers, par lequel vous connaîtrez qu'il ne s'est présenté aucun entrepreneur pour lesdits ouvrages, ni par-devant les lieutenants généraux de Lyon et Châlon, auxquels j'avais adressé nos ordonnances, ni par-devant moi au jour que j'avais marqué pour l'adjudication de ces ouvrages, et assurément, Monsieur, il n'y a personne dans ces provinces ni assez intelligent(15) ni assez riche pour de telles entreprises, et pour ce grand dessein, il ne faut pas s'attendre d'en trouver qu'à Paris.(16)
As will become clear presently, money could well have constituted the main barrier between Colbert and the entrepreneurs he sought. What the minister liked even more than grand designs was grand designs that cost the royal treasury nothing. He was looking for expertise backed by venture capital of no mean amount.
But Bouchu had pointed first to the shortage of expertise, and his complaint was echoed in a report written elsewhere in France on the very next day. Another intendant, Pellot, was having difficulties carrying out work on the Lot River:
L'on fait tout ce qui se peut au monde pour avancer ce travail de la rivière du Lot, et afin qu'il se fasse avec beaucoup de ménage; mais cet ouvrage est extraordinairement difficile et pénible. Il faut travailler en même temps en vingts endroits différents, éloignés d'une lieue ou deux les uns des autres. Il y a force rochers à couper, des paissières ou digues à transporter. C'est une riviére fâcheuse, et où il arrive souvent des creues; les ingénieurs et architectes, quoique les plus habiles, se sont souvent mécomptés.(17)
It had taken some ingenuity to get the advice of those "most able", yet fallible engineers. A year earlier Pellot had boasted of having seized on an unusual opportunity. A four-man team of engineers had come to examine a specific difficulty in the design of three locks. Pellot grabbed them:
... comme l'on aurait de la peine d'...assembler autant [de gens experts] dans le reste du royaume, puisque nous les avons, je ferai en sorte qu'ils ne se séparent point qu'ils n'aient résolu ce qu'il faut faire dans cette rivière du Lot jusqu'à Cahors.(18)
In the mid-1660s one evidently took what expertise one could find, when and where one could find it.
Yet, know-how existed to be found. The Canal de Languedoc shows that.(19) The idea of a canal linking the Garonne near Toulouse to the Aude near Carcassonne --and via those rivers respectively the Atlantic to the Mediterranean--had floated about for centuries, but not until the early 1660s did someone suggest a means of doing so that would not entail large-scale reshaping of the region's topography. A local tax-farmer, Pierre-Paul Riquet, Seigneur de Bonrepos, wrote to Colbert in 1662 to say that he had a plan that would reduce the construction of a canal to questions of financing alone --and for that too he had some proposals to offer. Colbert responded first by detailing Clerville to look into the matter (cf. his instructions above) and then by setting up with the Etats de Languedoc a joint commission to scrutinize the proposal and to draw up precise specifications and estimates. (The personnel of that commission is of interest in itself; we shall return to it in a moment.)
The essence of Riquet's plan lay in his claim to be able to construct dikes, watercourses, and aqueducts that would feed the waters of the Alzan, Vernassone, and Lampellon rivers into the Lampy, the Lampy into the Rieutort, and the Rieutort into the Sor, and then bring the combined flow to Les Pierres de Naurouse near Castelnaudary, where a natural watershed would divide it to feed the two parts of a canal between the Garonne and the Aude. The canal via Naurouse would follow the flattest line possible and hence require the fewest locks between the two terminals. It was a bold plan, and on-site inspection failed to allay the commission's doubts that it could be carried out. Before any canal could be undertaken, Colbert's experts wanted to see a preliminary two-foot trench along the entire route of the feeder system, including such aqueducts as would be necessary to ensure a year-round supply of water for the main canal.
As far as the canal itself was concerned, the commission knew what sorts of locks, embankments, and other works would be required, but at least one member doubted that the requisite locks were feasible. In addition, inspection and soundings made it clear that the Aude could not be made navigable without extraordinary measures. Hence, the commission proposed that the canal, if it were built at all, run past Carcassonne through Trèbes and alongside the Aude to Narbonne. To make a virtue of necessity, the experts suggested then turning the canal toward the Etang de Thau, linking it to a new harbor at Cette (now Sète), and extending it through the marshes of Aigues-Mortes to connect with the Rhone. Then traffic could move from Bordeaux to Marseilles without having to venture into the Mediterranean at all. For the canal from Toulouse to Narbonne, including the feeder system, the committee estimated a cost of some eight million livres. They offered no estimates on the final section, because they expected that Colbert would treat it as a matter of naval installations.(20)
Colbert kept a tight hand on the king's purse under any circumstances, but the combined hesitation and daring of the commission's report made him even more wary than usual. Despite his policy of enhancing the nation's commercial facilities, he was not about to risk investment in a project in which his advisers did not have full confidence. Fortunately for him, Riquet did have the needed confidence. He declared himself willing to undertake the experimental trench at his own cost. If his plan failed, he stood to lose some 200,000 livres. If he succeeded, he expected to be able to proceed with the canal and to gain commensurately with the risk he had taken; at first, however, he left his sense of "commensurately" undefined.
Who was Riquet that he should have such confidence in his ability to carry out a major engineering project with several novel and therefore dubious components? "Tous ses contemporains," wrote his descendents in their Histoire du Canal de Languedoc, "s'accordent à dire qu'il avait un génie rare, et que la nature seule l'avait fait géomètre." That is to say, he lacked any formal credentials. He introduced himself to Colbert as an homme de gabelle dabbling in surveying (nivelage) and "n'entendant ni grec ni latin, et à peine sachant pas parler français, il n'est pas possible que je m'explique sans bégayer."(21) Hence, he had had little schooling and, if he had ever built anything prior to the Languedoc Canal, neither he nor anyone else at the time mentioned it. Perhaps he had tried some experiments on his own estates; if so, they are not recorded. Apparently, Colbert had no more to go on than do we today in judging Riquet's expertise prior to the fact.
In fact, Riquet not only completed the experimental trench within four months of having received the letters-patent to undertake it (in April 1665), but he did so at less than half the estimated cost. While at St.-Germain to confer with Colbert he had conceived a route for the trench that eliminated the need for any reversals of flow, aqueducts, or tunnels; by a combination of ditches and valleys, he could use the natural fall of the terrain to bring the water to Les Pierres de Naurouse. If nothing else, Riquet knew the lay of the land in the Montagne Noire; indeed, he carried it about with him in his head. So far, he seemed to know what he was doing.
His know-how extended well beyond ditches and dikes, although in more expected ways. Encouraged now by Colbert to explain the remarks about commensurate gain, Riquet set out a plan whereby he would build the canal on speculation. The details are too complicated to set out fully here, but in essence Riquet would purchase the entire route of the canal as a newly created fief with full seigneurial rights, including justice, castle, monopolies, and the sale of offices.(22) The owners of the properties seized to form the fief would be indemnified by the King. Riquet would then bid on the contract to build the canal, accepting as payment various taxes and tax-farms. Finally, as a means of guaranteeing the canal's maintenance when completed, the king would assign to the proprietor income from fixed tolls on the canal.
These are high stakes under any circumstances, but they loom especially large against the backdrop of Colbert's failure to attract any bidders at all for the Loire-Saône canal. Financial considerations aside, the Languedoc Canal scheme meant the permanent alienation of land, justice, offices, and customs along a waterway that could have strategic as well as commercial importance. That Colbert was willing to pay that price shows how desperately he wanted the canal. Riquet for his part engaged himself not only to pay a sum of millions of livres over the space of a few years but also to organize an undertaking involving political and financial administration in addition to technical direction of the canal itself. It is worth considering, therefore, first what sort of expert advice Colbert had in making his decision to approve the canal and in assuring himself thereafter concerning its satisfactory progress; and second what personnel Riquet had available to fill his organization and execute his plans. Since, as will become clear, Colbert's resources of expertise differed from Riquet's, it is further worth considering what measures, if any, Colbert and his successors took to enlist such private resources in the service of the government.
Presented with Riquet's initial proposal, Colbert turned first to his Commissaire General des Fortifications, Nicolas de Clerville (1610-1677).(23) Clerville had begun his career in the army and had risen through distinguished service to the rank of maréchal de camp by 1652. Only then had he turned to military engineering and served as counsellor to Mazarin in that area. When, on assuming personal rule, Louis XIV reduced the number of secretaries of state from four to two but maintained a division of military authority between them (Le Tellier had responsibility for the army and for fortifications in the northeast sector, Colbert for the navy and for installations in the south, southwest, and west), Clerville seemed the person best suited to link the two portfolios and maintain general technical oversight. Before long, however, Le Tellier and his son Louvois lost confidence in Clerville and turned for advice instead to Vauban, who thus replaced Clerville long before succeeding to his office.
Colbert retained Clerville's services, not only in matters of military engineering but also in the matters of civil engineering that fell under the minister's other jurisdictions. So it happened that an old soldier who had some special experience in building forts, digging trenches, and placing artillery spent his later years roaming the south of France inspecting roads, rivers, bridges, and canals and being asked his advice on matters of engineering for which his previous record would suggest he was unprepared. But then, it is not at all clear from his record what he did know, or how he knew it.
Colbert evidently trusted Clerville's judgment. For one thing, even if the marshal had never built a bridge or a canal, he surely had managed large construction projects and therefore knew how to draw up a reliable estimate of costs. When, for example, the joint commission filed its report on the possibility of Riquet's canal, it included an estimate of some eight million livres as the cost. That figure came from people whom Colbert himself had designated as experts. But then Clerville revised the estimate, pointing out that it projected a cross-section larger than necessary for the traffic the canal would be carrying --the Garonne itself set limits on the size of vessels entering the canal-- and that it included dikes, levees, and reservoirs that Riquet's new feeder route rendered superfluous. Clerville's revised estimate cut the projected cost in half, while at the same time it allowed Riquet greater leeway than before in making changes. Accepted without demur by Colbert, it became the basis of all future financial planning for the canal. Moreover, it marked a shift in the personnel from whom Colbert sought expert opinion. The commission ceased to play any role.
That commission, named jointly by Colbert and the Etats de Languedoc, had consisted of eight men.(24) Two of them were designated experts: Hector Boutheroue, sieur de Bourgneuf, and Etienne Jacquinot, sieur de Vaurose. Two qualified as personnes capables et expérimentées: Marc de Noé, sieur de Guitoud, and Jean Avessens, sieur de Tarabel. The remaining four served as "géomètres ... pris pour travailler avec lesdits experts à la vérification desdits ouvrages, suivant l'indication qui leur sera faite par ... Riquet." They were MM. Andréossi, Bressieux, Cavalier, and Perafigue. What sort of expertise did the eight committee members bring to the task of evaluating Riquet's plan?
The two experts came from quite different backgrounds. Vaurose was Directeur Général des Gabelles for Provence and Dauphiné. His name appears in the documents only in connection with this one commission, and nothing there suggests any experience or know-how as an engineer. By contrast, Bourgneuf seems to have had considerable experience with canals and waterworks.(25) One of three sons of François Boutheroue, Seigneur des Marais, he had worked with his eldest brother Guillaume and the latter's brother-in-law, Jacques Guyon, to complete the Canal de Briare, begun in 1604 as part of the system linking the Loire and the Seine but then abandoned until 1638 when the two brothers-in-law obtained letters-patent to finish the job. Bourgneuf became one of the proprietors of the canal after its completion in 1642 --when he acquired his title is not clear-- but evidently found building such projects more interesting than running them. Although there is no information at hand about his activities from the early 1640s to the early '60s, the manner of his appearance in the documents of Colbert's public works suggests that he had acquired some sort of reputation as an engineer. For his association with Colbert started off with the senior position on the commission to examine Riquet's plans and was followed in 1665 by appointment as Directeur des Travaux on the project to render the Lot River navigable. After some ten years on that project he obtained an independent contract to clear the still unnavigable sections of the Seine, Marne, Aube, and some minor tributaries of the Seine in return for twenty years' tolls on those sections.
Two other pieces of information about Bourgneuf enhance his value as an example of the expertise available to Colbert. First, he seems to have acquired whatever know-how he had entirely from activities in the private sector. A man of some reputation, he does not appear among the ingénieurs du roi on any of Blanchard's lists, nor did Colbert order him about as he did Clerville, Levau, or later La Feuille. Colbert contracted for Bourgneuf's services; he did not command them. Second, a pair of separately recorded episodes sheds light on the limits of Bourgneuf's expertise. During the final planning of the Languedoc Canal Bourgneuf objected to Riquet's proposal to build locks requiring gates of some 18 toises (= ca. 108 ft.) in height. Bourgneuf simply doubted that such gates were feasible, and it took considerable argument from Riquet to overcome those doubts. It was, of course, a matter of judgment. But one may wonder about Bourgneuf's judgment in light of what took place a year later on the Lot project. The specific problem that had brought a team of experts into Intendant Pellot's hands in May 1665 (cf. above, p.14) stemmed from Bourgneuf's deficiencies as an engineer:
Je suis en cette ville, [wrote Pellot], il y a plus de huit jours, avec M. le Chevalier de Clerville, les sieurs René [! for Renier] Jansse, Desjardins, de Bourgneuf, ingénieurs, et divers maîtres maçons et maîtres charpentiers des plus habiles que nous avons pu pu trouver. Nous avons remarqué beaucoup de manquements aux trois écluses que ledit de Bourgneuf a faites; l'on réparera ces manquements par l'avis de tous ces gens experts, ...(26)
Whatever Bourgneuf knew about the building of canals, he clearly had something to learn about the design and construction of locks. As will emerge from the discussion to follow, expertise on that subject in particular was hard to find, which makes it all the more curious that Riquet should have possessed it. For the moment, however, Bourgneuf's failure gives shape to our view of what Colbert could expect from a man he deemed an expert.
Practically nothing is readily available to convey the sense in which Avessens and Noé qualified as personnes capables et expérimentées. Avessens has left no trace of himself outside the documents pertaining to the commission. Of Noé we know that he was born in 1613, rose from captain of infantry in 1637 to maréchal de camp in 1651, was named gentilhomme de la chambre in 1657, and held the position of premier lieutenant du roi at Aigues-Mortes from 1660 on.(27) One would assume from his presence on the commission that he had some standing as a military engineer but, if so, one would then expect to find his name among the ingénieurs du roi cited by Blanchard, but it is not there. Nor does it appear in any of the documents of Colbert's other public works. What did Colbert --or, as the case may be, the Etats de Languedoc-- expect to learn from these two men?
Two of the four mathematicians on the commission also appear there for the first and last time: Bressieux and Perafigue remain for now mere names.(28) By contrast, Jean Cavalier carried out the responsibilities of an ingénieur du roi, although --again-- his name does not appear on Blanchard's lists: he was contrôleur des fortifications du Languedoc and hence under Colbert's command.(29) François Andréossi's career began with his assignment to the commission. Born in 1633, he had studied canal construction on various sites in Italy. When work on the Languedoc Canal got underway, Riquet thought enough of Andréossi's talents to make him one of the eleven inspectors-general who shared responsibility for the canal directly under Riquet as Director-General.(30) Andréossi had supervision over the Castelnaudary section throughout the project. He also appears to have had aspirations beyond that position, for in 1670 he prepared and published a chart of the canal entirely without authorization from Riquet. Although Colbert fully supported Riquet's complaints and gave him a free hand in punishing Andréossi, whom Riquet referred to as mon employé, the insubordinate subordinate remained on the staff and managed by various means to attach his name so firmly to the enterprise that his descendents tried to claim him as its initiator and designer.(31)
Of the eight members of the commission, then, only two appear to have had any experience or know-how in the construction of canals. Only one of them contributed to the canal they had been called upon to evaluate. One wonders in retrospect about the quality of their evaluation, and Colbert's quick replacement of the commission by Clerville only sharpens the question of what the minister expected of it in the first place.
A similar question arises at the next point of decision about the canal. When, contrary to the original plans, Riquet completed the experimental trench for the feeder system along a route that avoided most of the anticipated difficulties, Colbert assigned the intendants Tubeuf and de Bezons to inspect the job and report on it. Tubeuf felt the need for expert advice and so brought in Clerville and a certain Renier-Jansse, two of the three men just recently summoned by Pellot to consult on Bourgneuf's defective locks. For reasons that are not clear from Tubeuf's subsequent report to Colbert, Jansse stole a march on his colleagues and visited the project alone before making a joint inspection. He did not approve of what he saw and informed Tubeuf that he would be transmitting a separate report to Colbert. Tubeuf for his part urged Colbert to disregard Jansse's views on the grounds that "... [il] s'entend mieux aux ports et aux ouvrages de mer, qu'à ceux de terre ferme, d'autant plus que M. de Riquet répond du succes de la chose.''(32) Since Jansse was in Normandy before the end of the year to work on port facilities there,(33) one can believe Tubeuf's report of the engineer's expertise, but it is nonetheless striking how a supposed non-expert evaluated an expert's advice when it ran counter to what Tubeuf wanted to hear. Beneath the superstructure of commissions and inspectors stood a local magnate and entrepreneur who evidently knew what he was doing and more importantly was willing to risk his own money to show that he knew. Who could contradict him, and on what authority?
Colbert knew that if he wanted a canal in Languedoc he would have to let Riquet build it as a private venture backed by royal capital but let out on a long-term contract. Once Clerville's specifications and estimates had been jointly accepted by Riquet and the government, and Riquet had received the land and offices by which the price would be met, Colbert lost direct control over the project.(34) He had the authority to inspect ongoing work to be sure the specifications were being met, but he could not dictate to Riquet how to meet them. Moreover, as an experienced engineer Clerville had known that many details of the canal could not be specified in advance.(35) Riquet would have to solve some problems as they arose, and the contract left their solution to him. Colbert could advise and consent, but he could not command.
By the same token, Riquet was building a facility for public use and with evident effect on the nation's commercial and military well-being. If on the one hand he should succeed, the canal would have to be adequate to the demands placed on it. If on the other hand he should fail and forfeit his investment, the nation would be left with a large project to be completed by public means lest its own investment go to waste. Hence, Colbert had no intention of letting the canal proceed unsupervised, nor would he stand for less than the best work all along the way (even if the criteria of "best" were not at all clear). With his usual administrative skill, he angled his way toward some arrangement by which to direct the canal without having control over it.
A ready contrast in the correspondence with Riquet shows how delicately Colbert proceeded toward that goal and reveals his own perception of the uncertainties of the arrangement. While building the canal, Riquet continued to function as fermier-général des gabelles in Languedoc. From the start he had difficulty keeping the revenues of the two offices separate; on various occasions his tardiness in forwarding the tax revenues gave Colbert reason to suspect that they were going to meet expenses of the canal.(36) When that happened, Colbert held back no punches. He scolded Riquet, ordered him to make the payments promptly at the risk of royal disfavor and loss of commission, and warned him to avoid mingling the funds in the future. When, in the early 1670s, Riquet faced tax revolts in his farm, Colbert sternly admonished him to get the situation under control or to step aside and let the intendant's troops do the job. In the realm of finance, the relation of Colbert and Riquet was clear, and Riquet obeyed.
By contrast, when discussing the canal Colbert never ordered Riquet, nor did he give vent to his dissatisfaction in any but the most diplomatic terms. When it came to constructing canals, Colbert lacked more than administrative authority over Riquet; he lacked the authority of personal expertise, and he lacked the authority of recognized experts under his command. The peculiarity of the situation becomes clear when one considers the inspectors Colbert eventually assigned to the canal, their working relations with Riquet, Riquet's response to criticism, and his own organization of the project.
Colbert raised the issue of inspection right at the outset. "Il est certain," he wrote Riquet in March 1667,
qu'il n'y a rien de si nécessaire que d'établir, pour avoir la conduite et l'inspection sur votre travail, un homme qui ait toutes les qualités propres pour se bien acquitter de cet emploi et qui puisse répondre pertinemment sur les choses qui lui seront confiées.(37)
Colbert asked Riquet to consult with Clerville and to forward the name of a joint candidate. But, despite the urgent tone of Colbert's request, two years passed before anyone fitting the description was appointed to the task of inspecting the canal. Or rather, it seems that Clerville simply assumed the task himself and, at the outset at least, left Riquet to his own devices. And at the outset at least that arrangement seemed satisfactory to Colbert. Whatever his anger over Riquet's fiscal sloppiness, the minister welcomed Riquet's expectations of completing the canal ahead of schedule, expectations strengthened by rapid progress on the feeder canal. Moreover, as Clerville found it increasingly difficult to settle the technical details of the continuation of the canal from Trèbes and of the new works at the port of Cette, and to find entrepreneurs to undertake the work, Riquet showed himself eager to step in and help. By all evidence, he had formed a comfortable collaboration with Clerville.
By 1669 Colbert, prompted perhaps by Intendant de Bezons, began to suspect that the two engineers agreed too readily. In April they had submitted independent estimates for the continuation of the canal and for the port of Cette. The estimates did not differ significantly. In responding to Clerville, Colbert wondered why it should cost 16 livres 10 sous to move a cubic toise (~ 8 cubic yards) of stone some 200 toises (1200 ft.) and why digging a canal in Languedoc should cost 4 livres per cubic toise when digging one at Le Havre cost only 50 sous per cubic toise.(38) Surely Riquet and Clerville could do better than that, either by finding cheaper contractors or by inventing machines that move rocks more efficiently. Furthermore, Colbert was disturbed by Clerville's report that some of the locks on the completed section lacked adequate reinforcement and were not holding tight. The minister insisted that his engineer move immediately to remedy the existing problems and to establish safeguards against future defects. Colbert wrote, that is, as if Clerville had technical supervision over the project.
At the same time, however, Colbert wrote to Riquet to assure him that "je me repose entièrement sur vous de l'exécution de ce grand dessein" and to express confidence that "par la suite du temps et par la pratique, vous trouverez sans doute beaucoup de moyens d'en diminuer la dépense." Colbert approached the matter of the faulty locks obliquely by citing his knowledge of the problem via Clerville's reports and emphasizing the need for "ouvrages si solides qu'ils puissent être d'une éternelle durée."(39)
A month later, still assuring Riquet that "je me fie entièrement à vous du succès de cette grande entreprise," Colbert nonetheless reminded him of the need for a royal agent on the spot --if only "pour être le témoin oculaire de la chaleur et du zèle avec lesquels vous exécutez cette grande entreprise"--and introduced a Sieur de la Feuille. His assignment, Colbert told Riquet, was to
demeurer incessamment sur vos travaux, prendre soin avec vous de leur conduite, et bien observer que tous les devis et desseins de M. le chevalier de Clerville, et les marchés que vous en avez faits, soient bien exécutés.(40)
That was what Colbert told Riquet. La Feuille carried a far more detailed and candid set of instructions.(41) He was replacing Clerville, who had orders to go to Provence for "divers ouvrages considérables que Sa Majesté y a ordonnés." After reviewing all the records of both parts of the canal, including the most recent reports, La Feuille was to proceed to Toulouse and there report to the intendant de Bezons and deliver letters of introduction to Clerville and Riquet. All decisions made by de Bezons and Clerville prior to La Feuille's arrival would stand. In particular, if the contracts for the continuation and the port of Cette had already been awarded, La Feuille was simply to get hold of the estimates and specifications; if not, he was to assist in securing the best bids. Then he was to accompany Clerville on the latter's final tour of inspection. Once Clerville had left, La Feuille had a firm agenda, which reflected Colbert's main concerns about the project. First of all, he had to get work securely underway on the jetties at Cap de Cette. While he was at it, some inventiveness would help:
Comme il ne s'agit dans ce travail que de prendre de la pierre aux lieux où elle se trouvera et la jeter incessamment dans la mer pour former la jetée du môle, le sieur de La Feuille pourra peut-être trouver des moyens de faciliter ce travail par les machines qu'il pourra inventer par la connaissance des mécaniques.
If La Feuille came up with such a machine, Colbert expected him either to force the entrepreneur to lower the price of the job or to break the contract and take over the work himself, using the machine to best advantage. After three years' correspondence with Clerville and Riquet on the facilities at Cette, Colbert still thought that building a long jetty stable enough to withstand tides and storms involved nothing more than "throwing rocks into the water" and that doing the job more efficiently meant designing a machine to throw them in faster. One can find no more telling example of the shortage of expertise and of its lack of organization.(42)
Ironically, the next item on Colbert's immediate agenda for La Feuille was a series of inspections of the feeder canal under various conditions to check the stability of the stone embankments, a question of the proper placement of rocks. Thereafter, he was to proceed to the Toulouse-Trèbes section, focusing particularly on the locks to see if they were solid and to determine from the accounts whether each lock had cost precisely what had been paid for it. Finally (as far as the canal was concerned), if by then Riquet had assumed responsibility for the section from Trèbes to Thau, La Feuille was to make sure it got off to a good start. Clearly, La Feuille had major responsibilities, in fact more explicit than those exercised by Clerville, who after all was the ranking military engineer in the country. Yet, La Feuille had none of Clerville's rank. Colbert therefore expressly urged the need for diplomacy:
Il doit surtout s'appliquer à se concilier les esprits qui peuvent servir à contribuer au succès de toutes ces grandes entreprises. Pour cet effet, il doit vivre avec le sieur de Bezons dans une grande déférence, devant agir en tout comme son commis, exécuter ses ordres, et lui donner part de tout ce qui se passera; c'est de quoi il doit l'assurer et lui dire, aussitôt qu'il sera arrivé auprès de lui, qu'il a ordre d'en user ainsi. Il doit en user de même avec le chevalier de Clerville.
Il doit ménager avec soin l'esprit du sieur Riquet, qui s'est fait honneur de servir en cette entreprise et qui a agi jusqu'à présent avec succès, en sorte qu'il sera plus avantageux de lui confier l'exécution de toute l'entreprise que la diviser.
La Feuille carried out the responsibilities as chief consulting engineer de facto for the duration of the canal's construction, that is until 1682. Correspondence passed back and forth constantly between him and Colbert. Yet, who was he, where did he come from, what training did he have, where did he go afterward; for that matter, what was his full name? On all these questions all of the sources consulted are silent. La Feuille appears out of nowhere to take on an assignment requiring extensive expertise and the utmost delicacy in dealing with other people. Where did Colbert get him? No one seems to know.(43)
If we do not know today, what did Riquet and his associates know about La Feuille at the time? Did he have a reputation from which to draw authority for his advice, especially when it ran counter to what Riquet intended? From the administrative correspondence it would seem that he did not, that on the contrary he had a great deal to learn when he arrived on the job and that he deferred to Riquet on most technical matters. Colbert's instructions stressed two such technical matters: the "solidity" (the criteria are never stated) of the locks on the canal and the design and construction of the jetties at Cette. Indeed, it would appear that his dissatisfaction with Clerville's performance in these matters, and perhaps especially with the old engineer's indulgence of Riquet, prompted Colbert to send La Feuille as a replacement. Yet La Feuille could make little contribution toward solving either problem. When the new inspector arrived at the canal during the summer of 1669, he found the lock that had burst that spring still unrepaired. Instead of giving advice, however, he apparently sought it, since Colbert wrote in response:
Quoique je croie que la maçonnerie de briques bien cuites soit aussi bonne que celle de pierres, je ne laisserai pas de faire assembler nos plus habiles maçons pour prendre leurs avis, et aussitôt que je serai informé de celle qu'ils estiment la meilleure, je vous en ferai part.(44)
That advice never did come from Paris, but in the meantime Riquet, egged on perhaps by Colbert's repeated reminders, worked out a new design for the lock, which he forwarded along with a model to the minister in March 1670 with the request "de faire examiner cette écluse par des entendus, car il serait bien aise d'avoir leur avis: pour [moi], [j']en [ai] l'expérience."(45) Riquet did not mention La Feuille, nor did Colbert in his initial response. Rather, he wrote to say that he would confer on the design with Clerville, who happened to be in Paris at the time, and then two weeks later warned that one feature of the new lock had been tried at the Canal de Briare; it had not worked there, and Riquet would be well advised to drop it.(46)
In May 1670 Colbert wrote to La Feuille, not to seek his recommendations concerning the new design but rather to return "le mémoire que j'ai apostillé pour régler plusieurs changements qui se doivent faire dans la construction des écluses."46 That the new inspector had contributed little if anything to the deliberations would seem to follow from two suggestions that Colbert then made. First, if La Feuille could get away from the canal toward the end of summer, when workers were released for harvest, he should visit Holland to look at "les ouvrages des canaux, des écluses et des moulins, ce qui sans doute vous donnerait beaucoup de lumières pour la construction des travaux dont le Roi vous a confié le soin." Revealing one of the first signs of awareness of the need to develop expertise, Colbert added that La Feuille might take along "quelque architecte habile ou quelque jeune homme qui eût disposition à le devenir.' Second, the minister offered La Feuille the services of a Dutch carpenter named Vos, who was distinguishing himself by his work at Le Havre.(47)
La Feuille did travel to Holland in September 1670. What he learned there is not clear from the sources, which also give two versions of what he found on his return. On the one hand, Riquet wrote to Clerville in April 1671 that the new locks had met with success:
Des que vous aurez inspecté mes travaux, vous conviendrez que le canal et les écluses sont de sorte qu'il ne saurait être mieux. M. de la Feuille, qui vient, comme vous savez, d'Hollande, en convient, et que les empellements de ma maniere sont d'excellence et de service a être imités par tous les endroits ou il y a des canaux.(48)
On the other hand, the man who reportedly agreed with Riquet's results asked Colbert to despatch Vos to Languedoc. La Feuille, at least, needed more advice. Vos had caught Colbert's attention through the construction of a bridge and a lock at Le Havre, and apparently on that basis alone received a broad-ranging commission similar to that issued the various ingénieurs du roi. On his way to the canal in September 1671 he was supposed to stop in at Lyon to consult on the reconstruction of the Rhone bridge there and then move on to Avignon, where another bridge needed his expert eye. After joining La Feuille either at Avignon or at Montpellier, Vos was to observe
...la manière dont il sera le plus avantageux de faire les ponts sur le canal de communication des mers, les portes des écluses, les barrieres pour empêcher les ensablements, et les estacades a entrée du port de Cette, afin d'assurer contre les différents efforts de la mer le bout des deux jetées qui doivent être faites pour former ledit port au cap de Cette.
Colbert left the details of on-site briefing to La Feuille, but he looked to Vos for full advice on how to make the works solid and how to reduce their price to a minimum. After inspecting the canal, Vos was to inspect the projects on the rivers Agout, Lot, and Baise and then, having filed his report with Colbert, return "diligemment" to Le Havre.(49)
In short, Colbert turned to Vos for expertise on all the engineering problems for which Riquet had been awarded contracts and over which La Feuille maintained supposedly expert supervision. As in the case of La Feuille, the available sources give no hint of the past or future of the Dutch carpenter-engineer and hence of the reputation he might have carried with him on his tour of inspection. Riquet was not impressed by the news of Vos's coming. On the question of the lock gates especially, Riquet agreed to inspection but he was sure that Vos "en apprendrait plus ici qu'il n'en saurait en y venant."(50) Vos for his part apparently knew enough, or thought he knew enough, to submit a memoir critical of Riquet's locks, which Colbert acted on eventually by despatching two of Vos's apprentices to work on the project.(51) The subject of the locks then disappears from the correspondence.
About a year after the problem of lock design was settled, or at least reached an interim solution, a new focus of conflict emerged, provoked perhaps by Vos's inspection of the work at Cette. Informed in early summer that Riquet, in concert with La Feuille, had put into effect a schedule that would set in 200 toises of the second jetty, Colbert worried lest that ambitious goal sacrifice solidity for speed, especially by using rocks smaller than cal
02-01-2006, 12:44 AM
#4
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Location: Phoenix, AZ
Posts: 203
Interesting. Its all cool until it goes into the huge french paragraphs which I don't speak so i stopped reading thoroughly and skimmed... no idea why you posted it, but I guess now i know more about bridges and canals and military/civilian engineers among other things?
02-01-2006, 04:28 AM
#6
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Originally Posted by G2G' post='798392' date='Jan 31 2006, 08:56 PM
Second, the minister offered La Feuille the services of a Dutch carpenter named Vosko, who was distinguishing himself by his work at Le Havre.(47)
....
A fascinating read. I had no idea Vosko was that old. Or that he was a Dutch carpenter.
I was also amused that the .pdf attachment has zero downloads.
02-01-2006, 10:23 AM
#7
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Originally Posted by 1988RedT2' post='798568' date='Feb 1 2006, 02:28 AM
A fascinating read. I had no idea Vosko was that old. Or that he was a Dutch carpenter.
I was also amused that the .pdf attachment has zero downloads.
i thought he was armenian....
02-02-2006, 03:27 PM
#9
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Interesting. I began to post this. But then decided against it and closed the window. Apparently it already posted itself though. Yeah well this is what I had to read this week for history class. I usually don't mind reading, but some of this stuff is ******* bland I just want to throw my ***** in a deep fryer to stop the pain.
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